Reading roundup
27. Tanya Huff, Blood Ties -- this was fun! I've read some of Huff's stuff before -- two of the Quarters books (which I enjoyed, mostly for the world-building), another urban fantasy/mystery thing. I liked this one, too. I liked Vicki's backstory, her drive, her limitations, the way she needs to learn to define herself by a new role. (And I thought the way it was set up that she was in peril without being a damsel in distress -- she ends up captured by the bad guy because she waits to subdue him where others won't get in the crossfire and then the civillian gets in her way -- was well handled, too.) I liked her hot-tempered detective boyfriend, and the relationship between them ("open", tempestuous, but built on deep understanding). I even -- surprisingly! -- ended up enjoying the vampire character, which is a first. He is at the same time amusing (romance writer vamp, writing under a female pen name) and has enough holdovers from the era he came from (being short, more religious/superstitious than the modern characters, and occasionally dismissive of "peasants", being a royal bastard -- and generally touchy and/or snooty about a number of things), the right mix of dangerous and vulnerable -- it worked for me far better than these things normally tend to, and I didn't feel a power imbalance between him and Vicki, because she is not particularly awed by him. Or rather, she is, occasionally, but then she rolls her eyes at him, too. It just felt like a much more equal relationship than these things with vampires normally tend to (although I'm still utterly uninterested in seeing Vicki and Henry Fitzroy together romantically, meh).
Right, so, there was a mystery, which wasn't much of one once it's revealed that the culprit is a demon. Norman was utterly pathetic, but not that different from the sorts of guys who go on school shooting sprees, so that wasn't exactly unrealistic. But still kind of annoying. I wasn't really sold on the resolution, where the Demon Lord just goes away and leaves them alone, basically, but, eh.
I liked Coreen, too, who is feisty and screws up but is still sympathetic. And the way she deadpans the response when Vicki assumes that the executive assistant her father ran off with was female. ("'He,' Coreen corrected. 'And yes, very pretty. They've opened a new law practice in the Bahamas.'") Also, Dr Sagara, the crabby librarian/archives lady, was extremely awesome. A couple of other quotes:
"You know, there's a very good reason most vampires come from the nobility; a crypt is a great deal easier to get out of."
"This is demon lore. There aren't any cut and dried answers. Experts in the field tend to die young."
28. Sarah Monette, Melusine -- I'm glad I made the effort to track down this book, which seems really difficult to find in the library considering how recently it was printed. It's not the sort of series that I become instantly addicted to and want MORE MORE MORE, but I enjoyed reading it a lot and definitely intend to track down the sequels now. My enjoyment of it comes down to two factors: world-building and Mildmay. But first, Felix.
Felix, I have to say, kind of bored me. He spent so much of the book crazy, and crazy people get boring as characters after a very short while, at least as far as I'm concerned, but he got crazy before I started finding him sympathetic (or even particularly interesting) and so while he was definitely very pitiful in his madness, and the way people, past and present, treated him, and the very significant suffering he endured, I didn't feel all that emotionally connected to him. And, as Mildmay noted, when Felix was "topside", he was kind of a prick, which didn't help me like his character much. About the only time I did, actually, feel something more than pity or vague irritation for him was when Mildmay's curse is first triggered and Felix volunteers to have Gideon use his magic to help Mildmay, even though he knows exactly what it's going to do to him and the reaction we witnessed to Malkar and Robert doing so. But then he goes mad again, and I lost interest. I am, however, interested to see more of his non-crazy interaction with Mildmay from here on (I do like it that he seems to be making a conscious effort to guard his tongue around Mildmay so as to be less of an ass; that's a good start).
Mildmay, on the other hand, I liked from the first encounter, even from just his narrative voice in the introduction. He is a really fun narrator, funny and non-melodramatic, and I got all caught up in the slang and speech mannerisms he uses -- he's an infectious narrator as well as a fun one. Basically, I could read stuff narrated by Mildmay all day long, and it wouldn't even matter much what he was talking about. But, of course, I liked him as a character, too, the unexpected sweetness of his interaction with the little Badgers, Ginevra, Cardenio, even the Kalliphorne, and, of course, his immediate loyalty to Felix after Felix saves his life, and the lengths he is willing to go to for him. The interaction between the two of them from Mildmay's side was the most interesting thing about the book for me, the way he learns to read the various levels of Felix's madness -- and then barely recognizes him when he's finally sane; the way patience, irritation, gentleness, and brutality (which he feels so guilty for) mix while he cares for him -- it was just masterfully done. I have no idea what their relationship will actually be like now that Felix is back to normal, but I'm very interested to see.
I'll get to worldbuilding in a bit, but I should mention the secondary characters I liked, too. I like the grayness of everyone (well, almost everyone -- there doesn't seem to be much grayness to Malkar, but, of course, we only see him through Felix's eyes, so, there wouldn't be). I was very intrigued by Gideon and hope to see more of him in the sequels, because he is a nice example of an apparently decent person who can make crappy choices, and rise above them sometimes, and sometimes not. I liked Shannon as a character, too, and am kind of hoping to see more interaction between Felix and him now that Felix is no longer crazy. Bernard grew on me, rather unexpectedly, and I especially enjoyed his interaction with Mildmay, where they were on different sides a lot when it came to minor things but understood each other very well. (If I was going to ship anyone in these books, which I'm not particularly inclined to, it would probably be Mildmay/Bernard. 'Cos that's how I roll.) I also liked the fact that when Felix and Mildmay get to Troia, this promised haven they've been seeking, the people there are every bit as petty and fallible as the ones they left behind. I should probably put in a word about the Merrows, too, but I don't really have much to say except to note that they were sort of an unusual example of fantasy Russians. Still not totally sure what's going on with them, from a worldbuilding perspective.
And, speaking of worldbuilding. I love the approach of iceberg-style world-building when it comes to fantasy, and this was an awesome example. Several different yearly calendar and year-tracking systems that are mutually unintelligible, several different numerical systems, even, coexisting. Actual language barriers, that are not uniformly applied to writing and speaking. References to people and places and events and stories that never make an appearance, the "Cats of Queen Beruthiel". Distances that actually change the local population's perception of things, in gradual ways. And, of course, the magic. I love that there are all these different schools of magic, insular and viewing each other as heresy (or neither here nor there), and that wizards can't just willy-nilly "plug in" to a different school of magic, and that a lot of the limitations placed on magic appear to be social and political in nature, as opposed to, well, magical or physical, and that, given this mishmash, a bunch of wizards from different schools can sit around arguing what a particular spell result meant and whether it was valid. All this was awesome, and even if I didn't like Mildmay as much as I do I would probably want to keep reading just for that. Also, I'm intrigued by the names of things. Like, obviously, there seems to be a mix of French and English and Latin(ish?) people and place names in Melusine, and Greek/sounding names in Troia (and the Merrows are Russian, as is their ship's name). In a less elaborately worldbuilt novel, the mix of French, English, and Latin may annoy me, but I'm guessing here it actually means something about the history, and I wonder what.
29. N.K.Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms -- I picked up this book after hearing a lot of buzz about it. I was not OMG bowled over, but it is impressive for a debut novel, and I liked it.
One of the things that I heard lauded as a strength of the book was palace intrigue. I think my standards for palace intrigue are too high, after ASOIAF, because that was not something that impressed me overmuch. I think there are a couple of reasons why I didn't find this aspect particularly fulfilling. Part of the fun in palace (or other) intrigue for me is the interplay of strong, interesting characters. Here, not so much. There's a dysfunctional ruling family, but we don't really get to see much of their interaction, outside of their interaction with newcomer Yeine. Yeine's mother emerges as a fascinating figure... but we only get to hear about it, mostly. There are a couple of scenes with the ruthless patriarch that hint at him being the sort of character I would like, and a total of about a page with one of the other heirs, Relad, which made me wish there had been more of him around -- but that's not enough. The one we get to see the most of is Scimina, but she is basically evil in all possible ways and seems to have no motivation beyond that or humanity. Not interesting at all. And T'vril, whom I actually liked a lot -- he hit a couple of my narrative kinks, so that was easy -- has managed to remain improbably good in this nest of vipers. The one character who I thought was both interesting and around quite a bit was Viraine -- but I don't like the final revelation about him / how he ends.
Honestly, the whole "god's soul existing within mortal's body alongside the god's soul" thing annoyed me, which was kind of a problem given that it's the major mystery and plot point of the book. Yeine's apotheosis was my least favorite thing in the novel -- there's quite likely no way to sell me on something like this without it being really dark and broken and dysfunctional, and I don't think it was nearly enough of any of those things. I did like all the other god-related things in the worldbuilding -- the relationship between the Three (and I wish we had seen more Enefa, because she sounds interesting -- a scientist-god with a lot of clinical coldness towards her creations), Nahadoth, and especially Sieh. I love trickster gods in general, and I liked this one in particular -- the assumption of childlike appearance (which is an affectation that costs him power), occasional random cruelty, the weird Oedipal triangle thing he and Naha have going on with Yeine. The dysfunction of the god family was much more interestingly done thant he dysfunction of the Arameri, because they all were pretty nuanced.
Yeine was OK as a character. I liked certain things about her, but she just didn't have enough of a sense of humour for my taste. Not that she had a lot to be laughing about -- she is thrust into an extremely precarious situation, has lost both her parents and is looking for her mother's assassin, she had responsibility thrust on her young, after needing to prove herself to her people because of her mixed heritage, and she gets some startling revelations about herself, not least of which is that she is going to die in a couple of days. So, yeah, not a laugh fest. But her narration is so formal and generally grim most of the time, it's just no fun to be around her. I do like her and the narration much more when there's some lightness injected into it, via dialogue or a wry observation, which Yeine is not bad at. (And the stilted formality of narration, while fitting to the tone of the story, sometimes... well, let's just say it really did not work for me in the sex scene.) And the whole thing between her and Nahadoth... I liked a couple of aspects of it -- the way he started looking like her version of an attractive man, for example -- but her yearning for a god was boring. (Having read all of three pages of the second book in the series, I already like Oree, the narrator of the sequel, about a hundred times more than I like Yeine.)
Speaking of narration: the reason behind the weird interludes and how they are interspersed in the main narrative is gradually revealed, but it still felt pretentious to me for a good part of the book.
The human side of the worldbuilding is a mixed bag. The Darre people are really well realized. They have customs that have evolved over time, and history with their neighbors, and there's even a hint of their economy as far as "international" trade (I really liked the way Yeine kept noticing the dark wood in the palace of Sky, and how it made her think of home), and Yeine is believably a product of a matriarchial warrior society. But although there's a whole bunch of other tribes and nations mentioned, there doesn't seem to be any depth to that part of worldbuilding -- they may have red hair, or particular kinds of cloaks, but they don't feel like different peoples. Not than Yeine spent a lot of time interacting with such folks, but that was a weakness of the book to me -- without something in the background to make them real, all the names of tribes and languages and such became so much noise.
Some quotes I liked (a bunch of them are on the lighter side, apparently.)
"There were three gods once.
Only three, I mean. Now there are dozens, perhaps hundreds. They breed like rabbits."
"As I studied the reports over raw fish and poached fruit -- I did not dislike Amn food, but they never seemed to know what to cook and what to leave alone"
"The Darren language has a word for the attraction one feels to danger: esui"
"The Amn were not always civilized, the rumors remind us. Once, like High North, Senm was also a land of barbarians, and the Amn were simply the most successful of these. After the Gods' War theyimposed their barbarian ways on the whole world and judged the rest of us by how thoroughly we adopted them."
"You should leave this place, T'vril. Find yourself a good woman to take care of you and keep you in silks and jewelry."
T'vril stared at me, then burst out laughing, not strained at all this time. "A Darre woman?"
"No, are you mad? You've seen what we're like. Find some Ken girl. Maybe those pretty spots of yours will breed true."
"Pretty-- freckles, you barbarian! They're called freckles."
30. Diana Peterfreund, Rampant -- You know how, in about 90% of my reviews, I will get to the main character and say, "I liked [him/her] OK" or "Him/her I was 'meh' on"? Well, ha! Because I freaking LOVE Astrid Llewelyn. She is easily my favorite character in the book, my favorite thing about the book (and I really liked the book), and there isn't even any question about it. Astrid is awesome!
Things I love about Astrid:
1) Astrid is a real scientist in training. Not only is she interested in science and actively going after becoming a doctor (volunteering in the hospital) even though she is just 16, but she is believable in this role. She has a scientist's mind, analyzing inputs and details even in high-stress situations -- e.g. noticing that a wound inflicted with an alicorn dagger is behaving differently than one inflicted with a regular arrow, after she had just killed her first unicorn and saw most of her friends get hurt, or recalling that her cousin Phil had said "I will play with you later" to the little pet unicorn, as proof that she did not plan to have sex with her date. And she thinks in terms of behaviour patterns and hypotheses, and she resents unscientific ideas, like that particular skills run in families, and is frustrated by the others' reluctance to try an examine the unscientific but apparently true effects scientifically. And she stages actual scientific experiments with her fellow hunters, and uses words like "ambient unicorn influence." (In retrospect, even at the very beginning her thoughts on her relationship with the douchy boyfriend feel kind of scientist-like -- she is trying to maximize the benefits of dating him while minimizing how much groping she lets him get away with.
I can't readily express how awesome I find this, but it is. I've seen/read quite a few attempts to portray young geeks/science types, and so many of them end up feeling like caricatures to me or like shallow "my nerdness is pasted on" decals, or like someone's fairly uninformed idea of what would-be scientists are like. And there's none of that here -- Astrid's the real thing. She thinks and acts and argues in ways that are familiar and true to me. People talk about having different kinds of female heroines for girls to identify with, and there are tomboy types and girly girls and girls out to prove things to the world and girls looking to find themselves and to learnt he meaning of love and friendship or whatever, but I don't think I've actually encountered a female heroine before that I could identify with as closely as with Astrid. There have been plenty that I wanted to be like or think I was like, but for sheer identification, yeah, Astrid is pretty much it. And, yes, it's quite nice to have that, even as an adult.
2) Astrid is skeptical about unicorns and magic (though she accepts evidence as presented, and assimilated it into her worldview) and she does not want to become a hunter. I am really sick of characters who, offered a way through the looking glass / told that they have a destiny that's totally different from what they've been planning on so far, jump on it and happily leave their previous goals and lives behind (vampire novel heroines, I'm looking at you in particular. And at you, assorted young people of Tigana). Astrid is not like that. Astrid wants none of this unicorn nonsense. Astrid wants to go home, wants to go back to school, wants to work on the science and healing side of this whole unicorn business, at the very least. Even when she accepts that she has a duty as a hunter and can't just leave, she is still uncertain about the right way to deal with the unicorns (this keeps getting highlighted even at the very end of the book), and she still longs for the science and healing stuff (ditto).
3) Astrid is very rational and logical (usually) without being at all cold, but she can do the right thing even when it requires coldness. She clearly cares about Giovanni a whole lot, but she does leave him in the van and turns back to the real battle and duty (though it takes a reminder) and chases Bucephalos to the end without going back for him. She clearly loves her mother and Phil and cares about the other girls (and is horrified when they get hurt), but she is able to think and act logically and rationally and do what must be done regardless of what's happening around her. When she has the theory about exposure to the throne increasing their hunter powers and is trying to convince the other hunters to try it, she has the horrified though "I'm experimenting on people now" -- but goes through with it anyway, because it's a theory that must be tested.
4) Astrid, for all that she is very bright, is still a believable teenager who does stupid things and pays for them. Like reluctantly sneaking out of her babysitting gig to make out with her boyfriend, or sneaking off with Phil to have a night on the town in Rome, or throwing herself at Giovanni when she's determined to get herself expelled from the Order. She is reasonably distracted by boys and frets over believable teenagery things, all of which just makes her more endearing.
5) Astrid's actions and decisions and doubts and failures make sense, even when they're sub-optimal. Very often, the protagonist will behave in a stupid way to generate conflict or tension in the plot, and usually my reaction will be to either roll my eyes at the protagonist for being an idiot or roll my eyes at the author for setting up this situation artificially. I didn't feel that at all with Astrid, and the one time some doubt occurred to me, I was able to reason myself through it quite quickly. Running off armed with an alicorn to try and kill Seth after he rapes Phil -- irrational but totally believable, and Astrid herself realizes how useless her actions were the next day. Not telling the other hunters about the karkadann after she first meets him -- makes sense, she doesn't think he's real. After she's gored -- still makes sense, because with all the upheaval there's already some distrust of her and Phil, and she knows herself that Bucephalos's story is pretty unbelievable since she didn't believe it at first. Not telling the others that they've made an alliance -- that's the one point I questioned, but even that made snese upon reflection -- there's already a lot of skepticism from the other (and internal doubt) about the action they're taking -- whether the throne-training and alicorn weapons will be sufficient to even the odds, whether trusting Val to lead them there is the right thing to do -- that adding an unbelievable story on top of it is probably a bad idea. And her wibbling over the relationship with Giovanni is also believable -- there really are a lot of mixed signals from him, and it's perfectly natural that she would misinterpret his behaviour in the room after she's gored. It's so nice to have a protagonist whose actions always make sense!
6) Astrid's relationship with her mother. She clearly loves Lillith, but is also not the least bit blind to the fact that her mother is kind of crazy (for much of the book) -- not for believing in unicorns, as she'd thought before, but for rabidly chasing Llewelyn hunter glory for Astrid -- and doesn't necessarily have her best interests at heart because she is blinded by her hunter obsession. I've been a sucker for kids who are the more responsible ones in the parent/child relationship, and Astrid hits that kink. But after everything Lillith puts her through (and after her treatment of Phil), the way she reacts when she's afraid her mother will do herself harm when she believes Astrid is dead -- and also the way she feels about finally getting Lillith out of Rome: "I wanted to know she was both safe and gone."
7) Astrid's relationship with Giovanni. As I mentioned above, it makes sense. And it's cute. Astrid throwing herself at Giovanni and him backing off and being all, "I'm not a side of meat" was nicely done. Astrid's reaction to him in general, where it's so different from her relationship with Brandt was lovely, probably because I recognized it. For somebody who is always analyzing the situation, where there's always a detached observer in your head, having that suddenly disappear and be swept along by something heady and totally unlike you -- because this was Astrid, rational Astrid reacting this way all of a sudden, I was much more ready to accept this as real love rather the first rush of infatuation . I'm not sure it would work the same way for a reader of a different mindset, who hadn't felt that drastic dichotomy firsthand, but it totally worked for me. I like the fact that she came clean with him -- told him the whole story, including things she didn't tell the other hunters. That, too, rang very true to me. I also liked the tension that remains in their relationship at the end, when, where they want to protect each other and Astrid, in general mode, bosses him around and he says something hurtful, and it's not all fluffy bunnies but real personalities and no smoothing over the past and difficult choices, but they're clearly both working at it and willing to learn.
The only meh note there was me was the "ti voglio bene" Italian stuff. Possibly it works better if one doesn't understand Italian? On the one hand, I do like the implication that what ties them together is not *just* romantic love. And I suppose it needed to be a phrase less clear-cut than "ti amo" so that Astrid wouldn't really understand and Giovanni would have to explain. But for me, it was one of the very few spots that tossed me out of the story. Possibly because I've spent too much time thinking about "I love you" phrases and connotations in different languages, and what language choice means between couples with more than one language, and stuff like that. (I wasn't going to go into more detail on that, but I will, a little bit -- saying something like that in a language that you are closer to than the person you're speaking to feels... odd to me, especially if it's not your native language/a native language of yours.)
Giovanni himself I like well enough. I like the fact that he is a little bit in awe of Astrid's martial prowess, but mostly I like the lengths for which he is willing to go for her (and the lengths at which he is willing to stop, so to speak), and that Astrid loves him and wants to be with him, because I want Astrid to be happy. I would kind of like him to develop more ins ubsequent books though. Like he has outside interests (art history and such), but he still felt mostly like a flat-ish love interest in this one.
Other things I liked about this book: the way the Order's resurrection is slow, painful, and fraught with setbacks, because nobody knows what they're doing. I like that there are friendships and conflicts between the other girls to which Astrid herself is peripheral. I would have liked the other hunters (beyond Phil and Cory) to be realized a bit more, but I suppose that's coming, and Astrid was mainly focused on other things. I suspect as she takes more of a leadership role, we'll get more in-depth views of the other girls, too. I did like Cory a lot, the way she is understatedly snarky and diligent and driven. Her backstory with Bonegrinder was pretty horrific but really well done in the reveal, and her growing past that while never letting go of that central wound was well done too. The scene at the end where she sits down on the throne and asks Astrid to hold her hand was very moving. I liked Neil, too, including him and Phil arguing about which of her nicknames was better, and the way he reacted when Phil was raped. Phil herself I didn't find particularly interesting or compelling, but I do find it good to have a character like this -- pretty, athletic, lighthearted, less book-smart than Astrid but clearly very smart and capable and an excellent leader -- and to have her relationship with Astrid be based on love and complementing and supporting each other, without any rivalry, even when Lillith tries to instill it between them.
The discussion between Astrid and Phil about what happened was really amazing. Here were 4 pages talking about date rape, and it was not the least bit preachy or afterschool special, but absolutely in character and organic to the story, furthering character development and understanding and highlighting the relationship between Astrid and Phil. I was very impressed.
I also liked the way the Jager arc was handled. I'm not sure whether I really believe him about the Remedy or about his reasons for hiring Seth and Giovanni to deflower Astrid and Phil, but both claims do make sense (assuming he hired them at first just to keep an eye on them and moved to stage 2 only after his conversation with Astrid about running away). I wonder if they will find notes from the Remedy discoverey in the trashed lab -- I will be disappointed if they don't, because that would be unscientific. They can totally be encrypted notes, I don't care if they can't actually use them -- I would just be bummed if it went the sci-fi movie cliche way of "the greatest discovery ever! and it's all in my head".
I liked Bucephalos. I liked the way he and Astrid had to communicate was handled, halting and not necessarily clear right away but getting easier with practice. I liked that he is an alien entity, brutal, with his own agenda and morals, and the alliance between them was (and will continue to be, I imagine) interesting. And I'm pretty sure that was a slightly evil sense of humour displayed in the last thing he "says" to her: "The image of the Myersons' sparkly, silly little bedtime story ressurrected itself from the depths of my brain. 'I will never really leave,' said the unicorn. 'I will always live in your heart.'"
I can't wait to read the next book (Ascendant, out in late September). I just hope the things I loved about this book (and Astrid) carry forward and develop further, because my expectations have certainly been raised sky-high by Rampant and I would hate to be disappointed.
Currently reading: One of the reasons this month's list is so short is that I've also been working my way, interstitially, through two short story collections: Warriors and The Dragon Book. I had also started and stalled on Odd and the Frost Giants, and I think I'm just going to let that one go. It's a tiny little book, I'm even embarrassed to talk about quitting, but I think it's making me realize a truth about me and Neil Gaiman's writing: I love Gaiman's fantasy when it's set in the modern world (American Gods, The Graveyard Book, "Chivalry", to a slightly lesser extent Sandman (but not all Sandman -- I think this is one of the reasons some stories worked a lot less well for me), Anansi Boys, Neverwhere), but I am meh on his fantasy set outside of it: Stardust, The Dream Hunters (which I also quit in the middle despite its slim length), and now poor little Odd. I still like his writing fine and find his style charming -- that's true of everything the man writes, including his blog posts. But the plots and setting and worldbuilding just don't grip me the same way. Well, now I know.
Right, so, there was a mystery, which wasn't much of one once it's revealed that the culprit is a demon. Norman was utterly pathetic, but not that different from the sorts of guys who go on school shooting sprees, so that wasn't exactly unrealistic. But still kind of annoying. I wasn't really sold on the resolution, where the Demon Lord just goes away and leaves them alone, basically, but, eh.
I liked Coreen, too, who is feisty and screws up but is still sympathetic. And the way she deadpans the response when Vicki assumes that the executive assistant her father ran off with was female. ("'He,' Coreen corrected. 'And yes, very pretty. They've opened a new law practice in the Bahamas.'") Also, Dr Sagara, the crabby librarian/archives lady, was extremely awesome. A couple of other quotes:
"You know, there's a very good reason most vampires come from the nobility; a crypt is a great deal easier to get out of."
"This is demon lore. There aren't any cut and dried answers. Experts in the field tend to die young."
28. Sarah Monette, Melusine -- I'm glad I made the effort to track down this book, which seems really difficult to find in the library considering how recently it was printed. It's not the sort of series that I become instantly addicted to and want MORE MORE MORE, but I enjoyed reading it a lot and definitely intend to track down the sequels now. My enjoyment of it comes down to two factors: world-building and Mildmay. But first, Felix.
Felix, I have to say, kind of bored me. He spent so much of the book crazy, and crazy people get boring as characters after a very short while, at least as far as I'm concerned, but he got crazy before I started finding him sympathetic (or even particularly interesting) and so while he was definitely very pitiful in his madness, and the way people, past and present, treated him, and the very significant suffering he endured, I didn't feel all that emotionally connected to him. And, as Mildmay noted, when Felix was "topside", he was kind of a prick, which didn't help me like his character much. About the only time I did, actually, feel something more than pity or vague irritation for him was when Mildmay's curse is first triggered and Felix volunteers to have Gideon use his magic to help Mildmay, even though he knows exactly what it's going to do to him and the reaction we witnessed to Malkar and Robert doing so. But then he goes mad again, and I lost interest. I am, however, interested to see more of his non-crazy interaction with Mildmay from here on (I do like it that he seems to be making a conscious effort to guard his tongue around Mildmay so as to be less of an ass; that's a good start).
Mildmay, on the other hand, I liked from the first encounter, even from just his narrative voice in the introduction. He is a really fun narrator, funny and non-melodramatic, and I got all caught up in the slang and speech mannerisms he uses -- he's an infectious narrator as well as a fun one. Basically, I could read stuff narrated by Mildmay all day long, and it wouldn't even matter much what he was talking about. But, of course, I liked him as a character, too, the unexpected sweetness of his interaction with the little Badgers, Ginevra, Cardenio, even the Kalliphorne, and, of course, his immediate loyalty to Felix after Felix saves his life, and the lengths he is willing to go to for him. The interaction between the two of them from Mildmay's side was the most interesting thing about the book for me, the way he learns to read the various levels of Felix's madness -- and then barely recognizes him when he's finally sane; the way patience, irritation, gentleness, and brutality (which he feels so guilty for) mix while he cares for him -- it was just masterfully done. I have no idea what their relationship will actually be like now that Felix is back to normal, but I'm very interested to see.
I'll get to worldbuilding in a bit, but I should mention the secondary characters I liked, too. I like the grayness of everyone (well, almost everyone -- there doesn't seem to be much grayness to Malkar, but, of course, we only see him through Felix's eyes, so, there wouldn't be). I was very intrigued by Gideon and hope to see more of him in the sequels, because he is a nice example of an apparently decent person who can make crappy choices, and rise above them sometimes, and sometimes not. I liked Shannon as a character, too, and am kind of hoping to see more interaction between Felix and him now that Felix is no longer crazy. Bernard grew on me, rather unexpectedly, and I especially enjoyed his interaction with Mildmay, where they were on different sides a lot when it came to minor things but understood each other very well. (If I was going to ship anyone in these books, which I'm not particularly inclined to, it would probably be Mildmay/Bernard. 'Cos that's how I roll.) I also liked the fact that when Felix and Mildmay get to Troia, this promised haven they've been seeking, the people there are every bit as petty and fallible as the ones they left behind. I should probably put in a word about the Merrows, too, but I don't really have much to say except to note that they were sort of an unusual example of fantasy Russians. Still not totally sure what's going on with them, from a worldbuilding perspective.
And, speaking of worldbuilding. I love the approach of iceberg-style world-building when it comes to fantasy, and this was an awesome example. Several different yearly calendar and year-tracking systems that are mutually unintelligible, several different numerical systems, even, coexisting. Actual language barriers, that are not uniformly applied to writing and speaking. References to people and places and events and stories that never make an appearance, the "Cats of Queen Beruthiel". Distances that actually change the local population's perception of things, in gradual ways. And, of course, the magic. I love that there are all these different schools of magic, insular and viewing each other as heresy (or neither here nor there), and that wizards can't just willy-nilly "plug in" to a different school of magic, and that a lot of the limitations placed on magic appear to be social and political in nature, as opposed to, well, magical or physical, and that, given this mishmash, a bunch of wizards from different schools can sit around arguing what a particular spell result meant and whether it was valid. All this was awesome, and even if I didn't like Mildmay as much as I do I would probably want to keep reading just for that. Also, I'm intrigued by the names of things. Like, obviously, there seems to be a mix of French and English and Latin(ish?) people and place names in Melusine, and Greek/sounding names in Troia (and the Merrows are Russian, as is their ship's name). In a less elaborately worldbuilt novel, the mix of French, English, and Latin may annoy me, but I'm guessing here it actually means something about the history, and I wonder what.
29. N.K.Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms -- I picked up this book after hearing a lot of buzz about it. I was not OMG bowled over, but it is impressive for a debut novel, and I liked it.
One of the things that I heard lauded as a strength of the book was palace intrigue. I think my standards for palace intrigue are too high, after ASOIAF, because that was not something that impressed me overmuch. I think there are a couple of reasons why I didn't find this aspect particularly fulfilling. Part of the fun in palace (or other) intrigue for me is the interplay of strong, interesting characters. Here, not so much. There's a dysfunctional ruling family, but we don't really get to see much of their interaction, outside of their interaction with newcomer Yeine. Yeine's mother emerges as a fascinating figure... but we only get to hear about it, mostly. There are a couple of scenes with the ruthless patriarch that hint at him being the sort of character I would like, and a total of about a page with one of the other heirs, Relad, which made me wish there had been more of him around -- but that's not enough. The one we get to see the most of is Scimina, but she is basically evil in all possible ways and seems to have no motivation beyond that or humanity. Not interesting at all. And T'vril, whom I actually liked a lot -- he hit a couple of my narrative kinks, so that was easy -- has managed to remain improbably good in this nest of vipers. The one character who I thought was both interesting and around quite a bit was Viraine -- but I don't like the final revelation about him / how he ends.
Honestly, the whole "god's soul existing within mortal's body alongside the god's soul" thing annoyed me, which was kind of a problem given that it's the major mystery and plot point of the book. Yeine's apotheosis was my least favorite thing in the novel -- there's quite likely no way to sell me on something like this without it being really dark and broken and dysfunctional, and I don't think it was nearly enough of any of those things. I did like all the other god-related things in the worldbuilding -- the relationship between the Three (and I wish we had seen more Enefa, because she sounds interesting -- a scientist-god with a lot of clinical coldness towards her creations), Nahadoth, and especially Sieh. I love trickster gods in general, and I liked this one in particular -- the assumption of childlike appearance (which is an affectation that costs him power), occasional random cruelty, the weird Oedipal triangle thing he and Naha have going on with Yeine. The dysfunction of the god family was much more interestingly done thant he dysfunction of the Arameri, because they all were pretty nuanced.
Yeine was OK as a character. I liked certain things about her, but she just didn't have enough of a sense of humour for my taste. Not that she had a lot to be laughing about -- she is thrust into an extremely precarious situation, has lost both her parents and is looking for her mother's assassin, she had responsibility thrust on her young, after needing to prove herself to her people because of her mixed heritage, and she gets some startling revelations about herself, not least of which is that she is going to die in a couple of days. So, yeah, not a laugh fest. But her narration is so formal and generally grim most of the time, it's just no fun to be around her. I do like her and the narration much more when there's some lightness injected into it, via dialogue or a wry observation, which Yeine is not bad at. (And the stilted formality of narration, while fitting to the tone of the story, sometimes... well, let's just say it really did not work for me in the sex scene.) And the whole thing between her and Nahadoth... I liked a couple of aspects of it -- the way he started looking like her version of an attractive man, for example -- but her yearning for a god was boring. (Having read all of three pages of the second book in the series, I already like Oree, the narrator of the sequel, about a hundred times more than I like Yeine.)
Speaking of narration: the reason behind the weird interludes and how they are interspersed in the main narrative is gradually revealed, but it still felt pretentious to me for a good part of the book.
The human side of the worldbuilding is a mixed bag. The Darre people are really well realized. They have customs that have evolved over time, and history with their neighbors, and there's even a hint of their economy as far as "international" trade (I really liked the way Yeine kept noticing the dark wood in the palace of Sky, and how it made her think of home), and Yeine is believably a product of a matriarchial warrior society. But although there's a whole bunch of other tribes and nations mentioned, there doesn't seem to be any depth to that part of worldbuilding -- they may have red hair, or particular kinds of cloaks, but they don't feel like different peoples. Not than Yeine spent a lot of time interacting with such folks, but that was a weakness of the book to me -- without something in the background to make them real, all the names of tribes and languages and such became so much noise.
Some quotes I liked (a bunch of them are on the lighter side, apparently.)
"There were three gods once.
Only three, I mean. Now there are dozens, perhaps hundreds. They breed like rabbits."
"As I studied the reports over raw fish and poached fruit -- I did not dislike Amn food, but they never seemed to know what to cook and what to leave alone"
"The Darren language has a word for the attraction one feels to danger: esui"
"The Amn were not always civilized, the rumors remind us. Once, like High North, Senm was also a land of barbarians, and the Amn were simply the most successful of these. After the Gods' War theyimposed their barbarian ways on the whole world and judged the rest of us by how thoroughly we adopted them."
"You should leave this place, T'vril. Find yourself a good woman to take care of you and keep you in silks and jewelry."
T'vril stared at me, then burst out laughing, not strained at all this time. "A Darre woman?"
"No, are you mad? You've seen what we're like. Find some Ken girl. Maybe those pretty spots of yours will breed true."
"Pretty-- freckles, you barbarian! They're called freckles."
30. Diana Peterfreund, Rampant -- You know how, in about 90% of my reviews, I will get to the main character and say, "I liked [him/her] OK" or "Him/her I was 'meh' on"? Well, ha! Because I freaking LOVE Astrid Llewelyn. She is easily my favorite character in the book, my favorite thing about the book (and I really liked the book), and there isn't even any question about it. Astrid is awesome!
Things I love about Astrid:
1) Astrid is a real scientist in training. Not only is she interested in science and actively going after becoming a doctor (volunteering in the hospital) even though she is just 16, but she is believable in this role. She has a scientist's mind, analyzing inputs and details even in high-stress situations -- e.g. noticing that a wound inflicted with an alicorn dagger is behaving differently than one inflicted with a regular arrow, after she had just killed her first unicorn and saw most of her friends get hurt, or recalling that her cousin Phil had said "I will play with you later" to the little pet unicorn, as proof that she did not plan to have sex with her date. And she thinks in terms of behaviour patterns and hypotheses, and she resents unscientific ideas, like that particular skills run in families, and is frustrated by the others' reluctance to try an examine the unscientific but apparently true effects scientifically. And she stages actual scientific experiments with her fellow hunters, and uses words like "ambient unicorn influence." (In retrospect, even at the very beginning her thoughts on her relationship with the douchy boyfriend feel kind of scientist-like -- she is trying to maximize the benefits of dating him while minimizing how much groping she lets him get away with.
I can't readily express how awesome I find this, but it is. I've seen/read quite a few attempts to portray young geeks/science types, and so many of them end up feeling like caricatures to me or like shallow "my nerdness is pasted on" decals, or like someone's fairly uninformed idea of what would-be scientists are like. And there's none of that here -- Astrid's the real thing. She thinks and acts and argues in ways that are familiar and true to me. People talk about having different kinds of female heroines for girls to identify with, and there are tomboy types and girly girls and girls out to prove things to the world and girls looking to find themselves and to learnt he meaning of love and friendship or whatever, but I don't think I've actually encountered a female heroine before that I could identify with as closely as with Astrid. There have been plenty that I wanted to be like or think I was like, but for sheer identification, yeah, Astrid is pretty much it. And, yes, it's quite nice to have that, even as an adult.
2) Astrid is skeptical about unicorns and magic (though she accepts evidence as presented, and assimilated it into her worldview) and she does not want to become a hunter. I am really sick of characters who, offered a way through the looking glass / told that they have a destiny that's totally different from what they've been planning on so far, jump on it and happily leave their previous goals and lives behind (vampire novel heroines, I'm looking at you in particular. And at you, assorted young people of Tigana). Astrid is not like that. Astrid wants none of this unicorn nonsense. Astrid wants to go home, wants to go back to school, wants to work on the science and healing side of this whole unicorn business, at the very least. Even when she accepts that she has a duty as a hunter and can't just leave, she is still uncertain about the right way to deal with the unicorns (this keeps getting highlighted even at the very end of the book), and she still longs for the science and healing stuff (ditto).
3) Astrid is very rational and logical (usually) without being at all cold, but she can do the right thing even when it requires coldness. She clearly cares about Giovanni a whole lot, but she does leave him in the van and turns back to the real battle and duty (though it takes a reminder) and chases Bucephalos to the end without going back for him. She clearly loves her mother and Phil and cares about the other girls (and is horrified when they get hurt), but she is able to think and act logically and rationally and do what must be done regardless of what's happening around her. When she has the theory about exposure to the throne increasing their hunter powers and is trying to convince the other hunters to try it, she has the horrified though "I'm experimenting on people now" -- but goes through with it anyway, because it's a theory that must be tested.
4) Astrid, for all that she is very bright, is still a believable teenager who does stupid things and pays for them. Like reluctantly sneaking out of her babysitting gig to make out with her boyfriend, or sneaking off with Phil to have a night on the town in Rome, or throwing herself at Giovanni when she's determined to get herself expelled from the Order. She is reasonably distracted by boys and frets over believable teenagery things, all of which just makes her more endearing.
5) Astrid's actions and decisions and doubts and failures make sense, even when they're sub-optimal. Very often, the protagonist will behave in a stupid way to generate conflict or tension in the plot, and usually my reaction will be to either roll my eyes at the protagonist for being an idiot or roll my eyes at the author for setting up this situation artificially. I didn't feel that at all with Astrid, and the one time some doubt occurred to me, I was able to reason myself through it quite quickly. Running off armed with an alicorn to try and kill Seth after he rapes Phil -- irrational but totally believable, and Astrid herself realizes how useless her actions were the next day. Not telling the other hunters about the karkadann after she first meets him -- makes sense, she doesn't think he's real. After she's gored -- still makes sense, because with all the upheaval there's already some distrust of her and Phil, and she knows herself that Bucephalos's story is pretty unbelievable since she didn't believe it at first. Not telling the others that they've made an alliance -- that's the one point I questioned, but even that made snese upon reflection -- there's already a lot of skepticism from the other (and internal doubt) about the action they're taking -- whether the throne-training and alicorn weapons will be sufficient to even the odds, whether trusting Val to lead them there is the right thing to do -- that adding an unbelievable story on top of it is probably a bad idea. And her wibbling over the relationship with Giovanni is also believable -- there really are a lot of mixed signals from him, and it's perfectly natural that she would misinterpret his behaviour in the room after she's gored. It's so nice to have a protagonist whose actions always make sense!
6) Astrid's relationship with her mother. She clearly loves Lillith, but is also not the least bit blind to the fact that her mother is kind of crazy (for much of the book) -- not for believing in unicorns, as she'd thought before, but for rabidly chasing Llewelyn hunter glory for Astrid -- and doesn't necessarily have her best interests at heart because she is blinded by her hunter obsession. I've been a sucker for kids who are the more responsible ones in the parent/child relationship, and Astrid hits that kink. But after everything Lillith puts her through (and after her treatment of Phil), the way she reacts when she's afraid her mother will do herself harm when she believes Astrid is dead -- and also the way she feels about finally getting Lillith out of Rome: "I wanted to know she was both safe and gone."
7) Astrid's relationship with Giovanni. As I mentioned above, it makes sense. And it's cute. Astrid throwing herself at Giovanni and him backing off and being all, "I'm not a side of meat" was nicely done. Astrid's reaction to him in general, where it's so different from her relationship with Brandt was lovely, probably because I recognized it. For somebody who is always analyzing the situation, where there's always a detached observer in your head, having that suddenly disappear and be swept along by something heady and totally unlike you -- because this was Astrid, rational Astrid reacting this way all of a sudden, I was much more ready to accept this as real love rather the first rush of infatuation . I'm not sure it would work the same way for a reader of a different mindset, who hadn't felt that drastic dichotomy firsthand, but it totally worked for me. I like the fact that she came clean with him -- told him the whole story, including things she didn't tell the other hunters. That, too, rang very true to me. I also liked the tension that remains in their relationship at the end, when, where they want to protect each other and Astrid, in general mode, bosses him around and he says something hurtful, and it's not all fluffy bunnies but real personalities and no smoothing over the past and difficult choices, but they're clearly both working at it and willing to learn.
The only meh note there was me was the "ti voglio bene" Italian stuff. Possibly it works better if one doesn't understand Italian? On the one hand, I do like the implication that what ties them together is not *just* romantic love. And I suppose it needed to be a phrase less clear-cut than "ti amo" so that Astrid wouldn't really understand and Giovanni would have to explain. But for me, it was one of the very few spots that tossed me out of the story. Possibly because I've spent too much time thinking about "I love you" phrases and connotations in different languages, and what language choice means between couples with more than one language, and stuff like that. (I wasn't going to go into more detail on that, but I will, a little bit -- saying something like that in a language that you are closer to than the person you're speaking to feels... odd to me, especially if it's not your native language/a native language of yours.)
Giovanni himself I like well enough. I like the fact that he is a little bit in awe of Astrid's martial prowess, but mostly I like the lengths for which he is willing to go for her (and the lengths at which he is willing to stop, so to speak), and that Astrid loves him and wants to be with him, because I want Astrid to be happy. I would kind of like him to develop more ins ubsequent books though. Like he has outside interests (art history and such), but he still felt mostly like a flat-ish love interest in this one.
Other things I liked about this book: the way the Order's resurrection is slow, painful, and fraught with setbacks, because nobody knows what they're doing. I like that there are friendships and conflicts between the other girls to which Astrid herself is peripheral. I would have liked the other hunters (beyond Phil and Cory) to be realized a bit more, but I suppose that's coming, and Astrid was mainly focused on other things. I suspect as she takes more of a leadership role, we'll get more in-depth views of the other girls, too. I did like Cory a lot, the way she is understatedly snarky and diligent and driven. Her backstory with Bonegrinder was pretty horrific but really well done in the reveal, and her growing past that while never letting go of that central wound was well done too. The scene at the end where she sits down on the throne and asks Astrid to hold her hand was very moving. I liked Neil, too, including him and Phil arguing about which of her nicknames was better, and the way he reacted when Phil was raped. Phil herself I didn't find particularly interesting or compelling, but I do find it good to have a character like this -- pretty, athletic, lighthearted, less book-smart than Astrid but clearly very smart and capable and an excellent leader -- and to have her relationship with Astrid be based on love and complementing and supporting each other, without any rivalry, even when Lillith tries to instill it between them.
The discussion between Astrid and Phil about what happened was really amazing. Here were 4 pages talking about date rape, and it was not the least bit preachy or afterschool special, but absolutely in character and organic to the story, furthering character development and understanding and highlighting the relationship between Astrid and Phil. I was very impressed.
I also liked the way the Jager arc was handled. I'm not sure whether I really believe him about the Remedy or about his reasons for hiring Seth and Giovanni to deflower Astrid and Phil, but both claims do make sense (assuming he hired them at first just to keep an eye on them and moved to stage 2 only after his conversation with Astrid about running away). I wonder if they will find notes from the Remedy discoverey in the trashed lab -- I will be disappointed if they don't, because that would be unscientific. They can totally be encrypted notes, I don't care if they can't actually use them -- I would just be bummed if it went the sci-fi movie cliche way of "the greatest discovery ever! and it's all in my head".
I liked Bucephalos. I liked the way he and Astrid had to communicate was handled, halting and not necessarily clear right away but getting easier with practice. I liked that he is an alien entity, brutal, with his own agenda and morals, and the alliance between them was (and will continue to be, I imagine) interesting. And I'm pretty sure that was a slightly evil sense of humour displayed in the last thing he "says" to her: "The image of the Myersons' sparkly, silly little bedtime story ressurrected itself from the depths of my brain. 'I will never really leave,' said the unicorn. 'I will always live in your heart.'"
I can't wait to read the next book (Ascendant, out in late September). I just hope the things I loved about this book (and Astrid) carry forward and develop further, because my expectations have certainly been raised sky-high by Rampant and I would hate to be disappointed.
Currently reading: One of the reasons this month's list is so short is that I've also been working my way, interstitially, through two short story collections: Warriors and The Dragon Book. I had also started and stalled on Odd and the Frost Giants, and I think I'm just going to let that one go. It's a tiny little book, I'm even embarrassed to talk about quitting, but I think it's making me realize a truth about me and Neil Gaiman's writing: I love Gaiman's fantasy when it's set in the modern world (American Gods, The Graveyard Book, "Chivalry", to a slightly lesser extent Sandman (but not all Sandman -- I think this is one of the reasons some stories worked a lot less well for me), Anansi Boys, Neverwhere), but I am meh on his fantasy set outside of it: Stardust, The Dream Hunters (which I also quit in the middle despite its slim length), and now poor little Odd. I still like his writing fine and find his style charming -- that's true of everything the man writes, including his blog posts. But the plots and setting and worldbuilding just don't grip me the same way. Well, now I know.